Objects. How did their names derive?

Question

Where did words like, light bulb, cigarette, calendar, bottle, abacus even, how did objects like these get their names?

Looking for links with info. Thanks.

Answer 1

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=cigarette&searchmode=none

For example:

cigarette
1835, Amer.Eng., from Fr. cigarette, dim. of cigare "cigar." Sp. form cigarito, -ita was also popular mid-19c. Slang short form cig attested from c.1889.

bottle
1346, originally of leather, from O.Fr. boteille, from L.L. butticula dim. of L. buttis "a cask." The verb is first recorded 1641. Bottleneck in the fig. sense of "something obstructing even flow" (of traffic, production, etc.) is from 1896.

Answer 2

Objects usually got their names derived from old languages. Greek, Hebrew and Latin are some of those. It is because the Greeks had the earliest and most developed civilizations at that time, until the Romans conquered them.

Although not that known, the Phoenicians were also one of the oldest civilization. Because they had invented the first alphabet.

Answer 3

most of the words comes from ancient Greeks words (or any other ancient nations) that the other adopting and blended with their cultures to create new words with similar sounds


try browsing around the keywords of ancient words or try www.wikipedia.com